Questions about International school standards

[Alan]

Hi all

I’m about to start my first international school library job. I have a few questions about the unique difficulties of working in the international scene, particularly in SE Asia.
- What standards are people following to develop their facilities, collections and services?
- What associations have people found useful to join and what have they done for you?
- Where do international librarians buy their books from?
- How do you go about finding good foreign language books that have appropriate content?
- how have different people responded to the curriculum needs and learner profile of the IB? There seems to be very little official policy available.

That all I can think of for now but I’m sure there’s more. Please muck in and write anything important that comes to mind.

Cheers – Alan Jacques

[Ann Krembs]

Hi Alan Jacques,

That's awesome!! I'm finishing my 11th year of teaching overseas; you're in for a treat. Where will you be moving to?

Currently I'm the head librarian at the American School of Bombay. I don't have answers to all your questions, but I have a few ideas that have helped me.

I created--with the elementary librarian and finally at the end the IT director--a information literacy matrix for our school. Use info from other schools. Use ALA. Use AASL. There are many models of standards and benchmarks to use. I'll send you what we created here at ASB.

I haven't been a member of this ning for too long, but it's awesome. I just formed a group of International School Librarians--join us! I'm really benefitting from this network. It's easy. I take a few minutes each day and get a chance to share with other librarians. I was feeling lonely, but this has been a great place to go. For organizations in the East, NESA is good. ERCOS too. One other idea is to start blogging. The Edublogger--Sue Waters, is phenomenal. I've started a blog for little techy tid bits: Dear Librarian. Feel free to visit.

I buy from Titlewave--they're awesome. I also have found many ways to purchase locally. Do this! It totally helps out with meeting the demands of books now! Use to Titlewave to help with the record.

For foreign titles, I totally take advantage of the parent population. Since they can read the foreign language, I rely on them. Also, go to your language department for recommendations and help.

About IB, my advice here would be to work on helping out with the Extended Essay. I always try to offer workshops on searching the net, searching the subscribed databases, creating a writing plan and outline, citations, even notetaking. The more you can get involved with helping them access academic articles and understanding how to use them, the better. Also, order literature from the IB book lists, so your school library can offer support there.

Ok, I hope some of these comments help. Welcome to the international experience. Like I said before, I love it! (Well, I don't know any different!) My husband and I have lived in El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and India. Our two kids were born in Venezuela. While I miss my family and friends back home in Spokane, Washington, I cherish the experiences I am having around the globe.

Cheers to you too.

Ann

[Alan]

Hi Ann
That's awesome, thanks heaps. Naturally your answers have created more questions.

I'm going to a British school in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. They're just starting to build their senior library so I have a lot of work ahead. Still, it's more exciting to be making my own thing rather than walking in to an existing system.

Could you explain your matrix more or upload an example? I'm thinking of using the Big 6 system school wide but try to integrate it into research projects so that it has some context. I looked at some ALA documents but their guide seemed really over written to me.

I don't know NESA (will Google it) but I thought ERCOS was more an association that your school joined; am I wrong in this assumption? Does it have individual member benefits as well? I'm already a bit of a blog freak, which means I'm now an RSS freak because I cant keep up with them all. To be honest I find a lot of the same information seems to get re-circulated or re-written so I'm in the process of thinning out my feed aggregator. Of course I'm also adding to the info glut, http://ajacques123.blogspot.com/ but it's not as pretty as yours, I'll have to plagiar...um, take some inspiration from your work.

I'm hoping the admin will allow me to empower parents and kids to buy foreign language books for us, I agree it's a sure way to get decent titles. Also its making use of a resource that usually goes untapped.

Can you tell me any more about Titlewave? Is their catalogue broad enough? How do you find pricing and shipping? Also how is Copyright handled in International schools? Digital and hardcopy.

Speaking of digital what online stuff have you decided to purchase? I'm planning on doing most of my early buying around the curriculum and the learner profile, but I'm not sure how young the users might be. There may be some as young as year 8. Where do I download book lists and any other IB library documentation?

On a different subject, how old are your kids? We're taking a 3 year old. Any advice?
Also, how was Venezuela, I've heard it's really rough?

Cheers - A.